[robenkleene]

Multiple cursors are just live visual feedback for editing macros. Generally live visual feedback is a universal good, e.g., I'd argue most innovations in desktop user interfaces for creative apps are using Moore's Law to take modal interfaces and make them live (and correspondingly, non-destructive). E.g., find-as-you-type search and fuzzy finders being a couple examples, as well as most changes to Photoshop, GPU-based rendering IPR views, the entire existence of Lightroom and Ableton Live as apps.

With that said, the reason live visual feedback haven't systemically replaced all previous modal interfaces, the way they have for media editing apps, is because it's easier to picture the result of a text editor (i.e., relative to a HSR change to a photo), so it's not quite as revolutionary for text editing as it is applied elsewhere, I'd still argue it's a universal good though, more visual feedback is always better.